


Truancy

by ShitpostingfromtheBarricade



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Don't copy to another site, Enjolras POV, F/F, Genderbending, Grantaire pov, I did a lot of soul-searching post-writing to settle on that, Pre-Relationship, Rule 63, except apparently when I do, i don't do angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-06
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-10-11 02:28:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20538653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShitpostingfromtheBarricade/pseuds/ShitpostingfromtheBarricade
Summary: Grantaire doesn't show up to a rally, and Enjolras isn't pleased.Update: now featuring Enjolras point of viewWarnings:argument





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> One thousand thanks as always to [PieceOfCait](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PieceOfCait/pseuds/PieceOfCait) for her invaluable feedback. <3
> 
> Literally the only reason this is Rule 63 is because I had the idea while reading a Rule 63 fic and just didn't feel like it translated as well to their male counterparts.

A knock sounds at the door. Heaving a sigh, Grantaire pauses the show she’s streaming and pushes herself off of the sofa, peeking through the peephole before opening the door with an unimpressed huff. 

She’d like to say she’s surprised to see the blonde standing on the other side, but she really isn’t. 

“You didn’t come today,” accuses Enjolras immediately.

Untrue in every way but one. “I said I wouldn’t.”

“Yes, but you actually didn’t come.” The woman’s mouth twists. “You always come.”

“Not today.”

“Why not?”

Biting at the inside of her mouth, Grantaire shakes her head. “Because I decided to stop being a fucking idiot.”

“‘A fucking’—_Grantaire._”

A neighbor pokes their head out further down the hall, and Grantaire crosses her arms. “Do you have anything to say besides a read-off of your attendance sheet, or are we done here?”

Enjolras stares at her blankly, and the door is nearly shut before one of the woman’s holey hightops jams itself into the remaining gap.

“I’m not finished.”

So that’s how it’s going to be. “Come in, then. No need to air our petty domestic disputes to the entire floor.” She turns without checking the blonde’s reaction, moving toward the cramped kitchenette. “I don’t suppose it’d be worth the breath it takes to offer tea?”

If the glare Enjolras shoots her from where she’s finally shut the door is anything to judge by, it isn’t.

“Well, I’m putting the kettle on anyway, may as well make yourself comfortable.”

Grantaire hasn’t tidied up in recent memory, but she hasn’t been making as many messes in the first place either—an admittedly great side-effect of her newfound sobriety—so at least the blonde shouldn’t be totally disgusted with her.

Rather than accept Grantaire’s offer like a normal Goddamned human being, Enjolras stalks after her into the narrow quarters. “So what was so much more important than the implementation of a livable minimum wage?” 

“My dignity?”

The woman scoffs. “Our work is so far beneathe you that you can’t even bring yourself to attend? That’s it?”

“It sounds like you’ve already got me figured out,” responds Grantaire cooly as she fills the kettle at the sink. “Not sure why you bothered wasting the fare it took to get here.”

The blonde sputters, and Grantaire cuts her off with a sigh as she flips the kettle's switch.

“Let me rephrase: why do you care? You’ve said it yourself, I contribute nothing.” The memory of the one time Grantaire had tried to prove the woman wrong still roils shamefully in her stomach. “I don’t do anything in meetings but derail your planning and get everyone off-track, and I’m—how did you put it? ‘Incapable of believing, thinking, willing, living, and dying’?”

Enjolras’s expression falls as she finally takes a step back out of Grantaire’s space. “That was poorly said.”

“Yeah, well.” The kitchenette is too small for both of them while she’s in this state, and Grantaire stalks out to the living room without waiting for the water.

“Is that really what all of this is about, then?” Enjolras demands as she follows Grantaire. “Because of all the petty—”

“_No,_” Grantaire snaps. “No, you don’t get to do that.” She takes a steadying breath before continuing. “It was a shitty thing to say, full-stop, and you have no right to trivialize what you said and the effect your words had just because it’s me.”

“Well it’s not like you’ve ever cared about my opinion before!”

“Your opinion's the only opinion I’ve ever cared about!”

She’s still breathing heavy, and it takes seeing Enjolras’s bewildered expression for her words’ meaning to settle in. The kettle clicks in the other room, and Grantaire takes advantage of the excuse to escape the suffocating tension.

Without checking the box she grabs a teabag and drops it into a mug, filling it to the brim with steaming water. Stirring listlessly, she wishes for once that she was the type who took her tea with cream or sugar, anything to give her something seemingly productive to do as she delays the inevitable.

Unfortunately Enjolras does eventually come to her senses, returning to crowd the entryway. “You care what I think?”

Of all the stupid— “No, I get off on attending meetings I’m clearly not wanted at and antagonizing people who have what is apparently a very complicated relationship with my presence for every assinine thing they say. Gods, _Ange_, think for a sec here.”

“But I—” An aborted sound escapes the blonde. “You—”

“What, don’t blindly agree with every golden word that falls from your holy lips?” She rolls her eyes. “Just because you hate me doesn’t mean I want to see you fail.”

“I.” The woman blinks. “I don’t hate you.”

“Coulda fooled me.”

“I’m serious.”

“Hi Serious, I’m R.”

“_Grantaire_,” Enjolras insists.

Huffing, she throws her hands in the air. “I don’t see how you expect me to take anything about this conversation ‘seriously’: you think I’m a waste of space—”

“I told you, I didn’t mea—”

_“Then maybe you shouldn’t have said it.”_ It's at this point that Jehan or Feuilly or literally anyone else with an ounce of self-control would normally talk her down or tell her to step out for a bit, but today that’s not the case: it's just her, the self-righteous blonde, and her rapidly-shrinking kitchen, and Grantaire is on a roll. “You’re not happy when I’m in meetings, you’re not happy when I’m not. You literally tell me not to bother coming every time there’s any sort of event, and now that I’m finally listening, you’re not satisfied. What is it you want from me?”

“I don’t know!” Enjolras doesn’t look at her, teeth gnashed as her eyes cast downward toward Grantaire's shitty patterned linoleum. Pink blooms across her face from her nose, and it occurs to Grantaire that she’s finally gotten what she always wanted, has finally made the statue feel, and it’s worse than she ever could have imagined. Much more quietly, the blonde admits, “I want you to believe in what we do.”

Closing her eyes, Grantaire comes to her reluctant but inevitable decision. “I believe in _you_, Enjolras.” 

Taking a deep breath, she continues. “I won’t say I love you because it’d be insincere, and you deserve better than that, but...you’re the best the world has to offer. Of course I care what you think. _Of course_ I believe in you.”

Enjolras’s head shakes, brows furrowed as she squints in utter bafflement. “Then why didn’t you…”

Taking a step back to lean against the ledge of the counter, Grantaire shrugs. “Look _Ange,_ I’m tired. It’s exhausting being a burden to everyone around me all the time. I’m finally getting my life together, and I...can’t. I can’t do this anymore.” The blonde blinks at her, and Grantaire pushes past the woman out of the crush of her gaze and toward the front door, pressing her mouth into a firm line as she opens it. “I think you should go.”

Nodding absently, Enjolras finally steps forward, obediently passing through the threshold. Before Grantaire can shut the door behind her, the woman turns.

“We did miss you today,” she offers, gaze low. “All of us. And...I’m sorry. I just realized I didn’t say it before, and I am. Sorry.”

Without waiting for a response, Enjolras pivots back around and walks down the hall, leaving Grantaire frozen in her own damned doorway watching the woman leave.

Shutting the door at last, Grantaire falls back against it and slides to the floor, face falling into her hands and tea long-forgotten.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The incident from Enjolras's point of view.

Enjolras is irritable when she knocks on the door in three clear, crisp raps. Even as she stands on the doorstep she isn’t entirely sure why she’s there, but Grantaire hadn’t shown up this morning, and that’s significant in some way that Enjolras can’t quite put her finger on.

The door finally opens, and she wastes no time on preamble. 

“You didn’t come today.” 

Grantaire looks unfairly rumpled for half after noon. Nevertheless, she wears the dishevelment with a certain confidence, not a hint of hesitation as her hands rest at the cinched waistband of her pajama pants. “I said I wouldn’t.”

“Yes, but you actually didn’t come.” It’s a testament to their history together that Enjolras finds herself merely inconvenienced that Grantaire has sidestepped the question, spared the usual innuendo that she belatedly realizes her declaration would normally be met with. Nevertheless, her eyebrows knit together. “You always come.”

“Not today.”

Another sidestep. “Why not?”

“Because I decided to stop being a fucking idiot.”

“‘A fucking’—” What does that even mean? _“Grantaire.”_

Grantaire’s attention skims over Enjolras’s shoulder; her demeanor shifts as she stands upright, arms crossing over her chest. “Do you have anything to say besides a read-off of your attendance sheet, or are we done here?”

Is Enjolras being...brushed off? Perhaps their friends had been right and Grantaire is unwell: Enjolras can recall no time immemorial that the woman has ever passed on an opportunity to broadcast her opinion on any topic.

The door is already shutting, and _no,_ Enjolras has things to say. She manages to jam a foot into the rapidly-narrowing doorway before it slams in her face. “I’m not finished.”

Grantaire’s affect is infuriatingly indifferent. “Come in, then. No need to air our petty domestic disputes to the entire floor.” 

Enjolras is left standing in the doorway, still baffled at the brush-off. Setting aside the feeling in favor of the more pressing issue at hand, she closes the door behind her.

“I don’t suppose it’d be worth the breath it takes to offer tea?” Not that Grantaire’s ever been able to handle any topic with the appropriate level of gravity, but today Enjolras finds it especially grinding. At her responding glare, Grantaire shrugs again. “Well, I’m putting the kettle on anyway, may as well make yourself comfortable.”

It’s evident that the woman is fine health-wise, so Joly and Jehan’s hand-wringing had been superfluous. Another bolt of irritation rises in her, and Enjolras stalks after Grantaire into the doorway of the kitchenette. “So what was so much more important than the implementation of a livable minimum wage?”

“My dignity?”

Enjolras scoffs, the stopper over her anger slowly working itself loose. “Our work is so far beneathe you that you can’t even bring yourself to attend? That’s it?”

The tap runs as Grantaire’s expression tightens, tone going rigid. “It sounds like you’ve already got me figured out. Not sure why you bothered wasting the fare it took to get here.”

Is there a reason Grantaire seems to be under the impression that Enjolras thinks so little of her? Before Enjolras can regather her wits to respond, the kettle is being _click_ed on, and the woman turns to look at her, arms crossed and hip jutted in impatience.

“Let me rephrase: why do you care? You’ve said it yourself, I contribute nothing. I don’t do anything in meetings but derail your planning and get everyone off-track, and I’m—how did you put it? ‘Incapable of believing, thinking, willing, living, and dying’?”

That...would be a rather good reason for Grantaire to be under such an impression.

It hadn’t even been that big of an argument, in hindsight: everyone had been in good spirits, and Grantaire had taken to informing them of how hopeless their efforts were. Enjolras had asked the woman to excuse herself from their proceedings if she was going to act like that, and— 

_Let me stay,_ Grantaire had pleaded softly, body slumped over the table and eyes glassy with drink. _Let me stay—until I die._

The woman’s ready willingness to continue leeching the life out of them until there was nothing left had infuriated her. _You are incapable of believing, thinking, willing, living, and dying._

At the time the words had felt true, but to hear them echoed back now in their full cruelness… 

“That was poorly said.”

A scoff. “Yeah, well.”

Grantaire brushes past Enjolras into the living room, and Enjolras turns to follow. “Is that really what all of this is about, then?” Heartless though the words are, it’s hardly the first time Grantaire has compared her to a statue, juxtaposing her apathy with gods of old who played trivial games with human lives. Surely this sort of response came as no surprise to someone who has always been so determined to see the worst in Enjolras, unwarranted though the claims usually are. “Because of all the petty—”

_“No,”_ Grantaire snaps, the ferocity stopping Enjolras in her tracks. “No, you don’t get to do that.” Her mouth extends into a full scowl before she continues. “It was a shitty thing to say, full-stop, and you have no right to trivialize what you said and the effect your words had just because it’s me.”

No, because only Grantaire is allowed to get mad when she’s belittled, and Enjolras is supposed to just quietly take it. “Well it’s not like you’ve ever cared about my opinion before!” 

“Your opinion's the only opinion I’ve ever cared about!”

The sudden silence of the room in the face of the confession is deafening, ringing loudly in Enjolras’s ears as she realizes that Grantaire is taking her leave once more.

It’s not true. Grantaire doesn't care.

Except maybe she does?

It doesn't parse with anything else she's ever done, but Grantaire's also never been one to brazenly lie. Manipulate facts, yes; obscure basic truths, yes; ramble around a point until the presuppositions of up and down are no longer given, _yes._ To out and out state something that’s plainly untrue, though?

Her brain is a buzz of white noise and static as she wanders to the doorway of the kitchenette where Grantaire is swirling a teabag with single-minded attention. “You care what I think?”

The woman shoots Enjolras a tired look of disbelief. “No,” she huffs, “I get off on attending meetings I’m clearly not wanted at and antagonizing people who have what is apparently a very complicated relationship with my presence for every assinine thing they say.” Shaking her head, Grantaire scoffs. “Gods, _Ange,_ think for a sec here.”

“But I—” The puzzle pieces are coming together, slowly but surely—the arguing, the needling, the desperate vies for attention—but the edges are ragged and wrong, and the picture is utterly incomplete. “You—”

“What, don’t blindly agree with every golden word that falls from your holy lips?” Grantaire rolls her eyes, and Enjolras suddenly notices the dark rings that underscore them, the subtle tremor to her hands. “Just because you hate me doesn’t mean I want to see you fail.”

“I.” _She doesn’t?_ “I don’t hate you.”

“Coulda fooled me.”

“I’m serious.”

“Hi Serious, I’m R.”

_“Grantaire.”_ What she wouldn’t give to have one direct conversation with Grantaire without having to guess at each step in the ridiculous ritual she seems to invent and change at a moment’s notice.

Grantaire’s hands are thrown in the air with an exasperated huff, as if Enjolras is the unreasonable one between the two of them. “I don’t see how you expect me to take anything about this conversation ‘seriously’: you think I’m a waste of space—”

“I told you, I didn’t mea—”

_“Then maybe you shouldn’t have said it.”_ An exasperated laugh escapes Grantaire before she barrels on, Enjolras’s stomach growing tight as she speaks. “You’re not happy when I’m in meetings, you’re not happy when I’m not. You literally tell me not to bother coming every time there’s any sort of event, and now that I’m finally listening, you’re not satisfied.” Each word weighs heavier than the last, and Enjolras’s mind races to try to make sense of the feelings. “What is it you want from me?”

“I don’t know!” Maybe Enjolras really is the villain here. After all, Grantaire is right: she’s never satisfied with the woman’s silence, never satisfied with her input, never satisfied with her relaxed camaraderie, and yet in her absence Enjolras still finds herself unsatisfied. 

She swallows, turning her eyes downward toward the stained floor. What is it she wants? “I want you to believe in what we do.”

A defeated sigh sounds in front of her as Enjolras’s vision starts to blur. “I believe in _you,_ Enjolras.” 

Her head jerks up, loose curls catching awkwardly over her face as she does. 

The woman won’t meet Enjolras’s look as she continues. “I won’t say I love you because it’d be insincere, and you deserve better than that, but...you’re the best the world has to offer. Of course I care what you think. _Of course_ I believe in you.”

No, no, no. None of this makes any sense. Grantaire can’t...she _doesn’t…_

“Then why didn’t you…”

Leaning back against the chipped counter with all of the fight gone out of her, Grantaire looks much older than Enjolras has always assumed. “Look _Ange,_ I’m tired. It’s exhausting being a burden to everyone around me all the time. I’m finally getting my life together, and I...can’t. I can’t do this anymore.” 

The words replay in her head, their meaning simultaneously weighing heavier with every loop and entirely evading comprehension.

_Is this better for Grantaire?_

It’s true, Enjolras has always been the one telling Grantaire to leave, but until today she’d never considered that she might actually do so, never considered the weight that the words might carry.

_Is this better for both of them?_

“I think you should go.”

The words slice into her before she even realizes that Grantaire is standing at the now-open front door. 

Her mouth tastes like blood as she crosses the short space between the kitchenette and the communal hallway, unable to look at her...well, she’d always thought of Grantaire as a friend, but she supposes that perhaps that may not be the most accurate classification.

She surprises herself by turning, pivoting on the balls of her feet before Grantaire has a chance to shut the door in her face a second time. Despite the brazenness of the action, Enjolras finds herself unable to lift her gaze above the woman’s collarbone. “We did miss you today. All of us,” she quietly offers with a gulp. “And…” 

Her mind, completely and utterly scrambled on the walk over, snags on a thought.

_Incapable of believing, thinking, willing, living, and dying. _

“I’m sorry,” she professes, feeling the full weight of the admission pressing down on her chest. “I just realized I didn’t say it before, and I am. Sorry.” 

_For this and so much more._

Perhaps she should stay to face the consequences, but her head is buzzing, her thoughts are shaken to the point of nonsense, and apparently she can face down a hundred cops but not a single esteemed colleague, and so Enjolras leaves.

It’s not as though any god has ever had to answer for their crimes before anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> I know it's kind of Grantaire's "thing" that he shows up, but I wanted to explore what it'd be like if he ever finally grew a backbone and...didn't. <s>Which is why I had to have a queer PoC woman do it.</s>
> 
> Wanna trash me for continuing the longstanding tradition of flat female interpretations in Rule 63 fics? (tbf, I think I did okay) Feel a burning need to convince me of why I should continue this AU? Nice things to say???? Comment below, or drop me a message at [my tumblr](shitpostingfromthebarricade.tumblr.com). <3


End file.
